“Nicolas Cage should be on the $100 bill! Nicolas Cage should be on the $1000 bill!” laughs Texas-born Tye Sheridan. After starring as a young buck opposite Matthew McConaughey in Mud, the 17-year-old has now become a key figure in the McConaissance movement. For his third film, David Gordon Green’s hi-octane southern thriller Joe, Sheridan worked with the meme-spirational Cage, who gave him the cold sweats. “I had a feeling he was going to be a little crazy,” he says. “But he’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

“I can go fishing from my front yard because I have a lake right outside my house. I grew up hunting and fishing, so for the scene where Nic skins the deer, everyone on set was asking me, ‘When do we need to get the deer?’ and ‘What do we need to do?!’ It was funny.”

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

“I heard that Snoop was performing at SXSW so I walked up and said, ‘Nic, let’s go see Snoop Dogg,’ and he was like, ‘I’ve always wanted to meet Snoop Dogg but I’ve had a few drinks and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.’ So I ended up going to the concert but when I got there they told me that the venue was 21 and up. They wouldn’t even let me get in the venue! We called Nic and we were like, 'They’re not letting us in, do you wanna go to this concert?' By this time he’d had a few more drinks and he said, 'Yeah, I’m coming, and tell them I’m bringing 15 people.' He shows up in a black Tahoe and we go straight to the front of the venue and the bouncer’s like, ‘Whoa kid, you can’t go in.’ Nic comes up behind me and goes, ‘It’s okay, he’s with me.’”

DEALINGS IN DEAN

"Nic was always complimenting me that I reminded him of James Dean. I’d never seen any James Dean movies before I did Joe; he turned me on to his work and now I’m a huge fan. He was like, 'Watch Rebel Without a Cause and check out Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Those classics that you need to see. I was trying to remember them in my head, and one day he like pulls me to his trailer and he’s got a whole stack of DVDs for me – it was the nicest thing."

BRING ON THE MEME

"There’s this website called Nicholas Cage as everyone, and it’s like his face on every human icon known to man. He’s Jesus, his face is photoshopped on the Mona Lisa painting… and we were talking to him about it like, ‘Dude, have you ever seen this website?’ and he was like, 'Yeah'. Do you remember that Miley Cyrus song 'Wrecking Ball'? There was the video of her butt-naked swinging on a huge wrecking ball and someone photoshopped Nicholas Cage’s face. I texted Nic, if you haven’t seen the Miley Cyrus's 'Wrecking Ball' video, you should look it up right now. And he goes, 'Oh, I’ve seen it, and I’m gonna do something about it." I don’t know if he ever did anything about it or if it was a joke."